Tag Archives: ideas

Insomnia is the dark cloud that looms over your head late at night, taunting you, laughing at you as you toss and turn, as you beg for sleep to overtake you. It’s the endless thoughts that consume your mind, creating false insecurities and exaggerated life dreams that keep you thinking and contemplating everything that has ever happened in your life.

You obsess over every little thing that happened during the day, from a small conversation you had with you professor to deciding what you want to do with your life after college. Insomnia has zero mercy.

Don’t be this guy. Just breathe through it. Photo from theawkwardyeti.com

No one can help the intensity or frequency that insomnia has on their life. People always say “Just relax! Stop thinking and go to sleep.” If it were that easy, insomnia wouldn’t be an issue, but unfortunately, no one can physically turn off their thoughts, their hopes, their chronic dark thoughts that enter the mind no matter the time of day.

Insomnia doesn’t care how physically and emotionally tired you are. The constant, unwavering thoughts that burn holes through your brain don’t care about how badly your eyes burn, how your head feels too heavy to even lift off your pillow, how your legs ache from the exhausting day, consisting of walking across campus multiple times in order to get to your classes on time.

The only way I can treat my insomnia is to let my brain do its thinking, let it work out all the anxieties, all the problems and insecurities that course through your mind all day everyday, and after an hour, if those thought fail to cease, try to focus on your breathing, in and out. Focus on the rise and fall of your chest, the feeling of the oxygen entering your lungs, then exiting. Breath in positive thoughts, exhale negative ones. It’s the only way I can gently and calmly fall asleep without the constant dread of excessive thoughts failing to let me sleep.

All you can do with insomnia is try your best to breathe, to let your brain do its thinking, and don’t stress about the lack of sleep you’re getting. Focus on the good and let go of the bad.

Let’s all face it, although Netflix is one of the best things to ever grace our laptop screens, it can be a real headache to scroll through the hundreds of options to decide what to watch every night. Well pop some popcorn and get comfy because I’ve narrowed down your options to make choosing the right movie much easier.

To help you out even more, for each movie I’ll be rating it’s “Gore Factor” (so you don’t pick the wrong movie to watch while eating dinner), it’s “Laugh Factor”, and it’s level of sexual content. Each of these are on an easy scale of 1-10, 1 being minimal gore, laughs, or sex and 10 being absolutely disgusting, absolutely hilarious, or “absolutely don’t watch this with your mom!”

Although the Disney classic is amazing and you should totally be watching it about once a year, this version features the beloved legend of Hercules, but with a ton of twists and turns. It has the whole package- action, some genuinely funny moments, and Greek mythology. What more could you want?

I realize that this is a fairly universally loved movie, but I’m hoping to reach those of you who, like me, have avoided watching this movie believing it to be some boring business drama. Last year, I finally got bored enough that I decided to give “The Wolf of Wall Street” a chance and I realized that I have never been so wrong to judge a movie by it’s trailer. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is more of a smart comedy in my opinion than anything. It will honestly make you mad that Leonard Dicaprio has yet to win an Oscar because it’s that good. Seriously, this movie will make you laugh, cry, and hate the 1% even more than you already did.

“The Skeleton Twins” is an independent movie starring the amazing and multi-talented Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, who play estranged twins brought together by a suicide attempt. While technically a “dark” comedy, this movie discusses very serious issues such as mental illness, suicide, infidelity and sexuality. Warning: don’t watch this thinking that it’s going to be hilarious just because it stars two terrific comedians. This movie is extremely dark and will make you think more than laugh. It’s truly a masterpiece, but not the kind of movie that you want to watch if you’re having a bad day and need cheering up.

4) Heathers

-Gore Factor: 2
-Laugh Factor: 6
-Sexual Content: 4

On the subject of dark comedies, if you haven’t seen “Heathers,” the 1988 cult classic starring Winona Rider and Christian Slater, then you need to cancel whatever plans you made for the night. For such a famous movie, too many people in our generation have yet to see it. For those of you who don’t know, “Heathers” is about a high school student named Veronica who somehow finds herself best friends with the three most popular (and mean) girls in school, all named Heather. When she meets the new boy in town, J.D., he offers a suggestion for solving her problems with her horrible friends- kill them. In addition to being twisted and funny, “Heathers” provides fantastically sarcastic social commentary on the minds of high-schoolers.

5) Narcos
-Gore Factor: 4
-Laugh Factor: 1
-Sexual Content: 9

This is a Netflix original series instead of a movie, but it still deserves a mention on this list. Taking place in the 80’s, “Narcos” follows the life and work of Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. The series features ample amounts of sex, drugs, and crime drama. Warning: about 90% of the show is spoken in Spanish with English subtitles so if you’re unable to handle subtitles, this is not the show for you, but you’d really be missing out. Also, please use caution when watching this show as it has a tendency to make you binge-watch and lose an entire day.

Black Coffee

Black Coffee is a joint media project created and produced by Whim and Radford on Camera. Black Coffee takes the talents of Radford’s musically gifted and provides them with an outlet to play for the community by means of student-run, student-produced media.